Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to help tackle health inequalities experienced by autistic adults.

We published our refreshed national autism strategy in July 2021. The strategy was backed by over £74 million in the first year and is aimed at tackling the health and wider inequalities experienced by autistic people through improving understanding in society, reducing diagnosis waiting times and improving access to high quality health and social care for autistic people. We are also updating the Statutory Guidance on Autism to support the National Health Service and local authorities to deliver improved outcomes for autistic people.

Each integrated care board is expected to have an Executive Lead for learning disability and autism who will support the board in addressing the health inequalities that people with a learning disability and autistic people experience.

In January 2022, the scope of the ‘Learning from lives and deaths – People with a learning disability and autistic people programme’ (LeDeR) was expanded to include autistic people as well as people with a learning disability. This programme enables us to build up a detailed picture of key improvements needed, both locally and at a national level, to reduce the inequality in life expectancy for these groups.

In addition, from 1 July 2022, the Health and Care Act 2022 requires Care Quality Commission registered providers to ensure their staff receive specific training on learning disability and autism appropriate to their role. We are rolling out the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism to support this. This training will help to ensure that staff have the right skills and knowledge to provide safe and compassionate care for autistic people, which will play an important role in tackling health and care inequalities.